


pin these dreams to wings

by therethedanceis



Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Episode 4x07, Episode Tag, F/M, write the fic you wish to see in the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29678220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therethedanceis/pseuds/therethedanceis
Summary: Later, her moral compass will come back to her, and she will apologize more earnestly to Ben, whose only fault was that he was the safe choice who reminded her of absolutely nothing. But in the orange glow of the street lights, and in the cradle of Clay’s arms, there is only him or not him, and that’s no choice at all.
Relationships: Stella Baxter/Clay Spenser
Comments: 16
Kudos: 38





	pin these dreams to wings

When Clay breaks the kiss, Stella just leans into him, drawing her arms tightly around his middle, pressing her cheek against his chest, and breathing in time to the steady beat she finds there. He’s bigger than she remembers, the warm skin and sinew under his shirt even more solid and sturdy than it was the last time she held him like this, when she left for new horizons in California with an unwhole heart. She wonders what kinds of fights he’s had to go through, to come out so much stronger.

She would cry for the moments she missed, or how right it feels with his hand cupping the back of her head like she’s the most precious thing, if the idea of falling apart just because he’s here didn’t make her want to vomit. But he’s here, and he loves her, and for the moment, that’s all that matters to her. If there are some tears peeking out of the corners of her eyes, then so be it. 

Reluctantly, she pulls away from him, remembering where she is, what time it is, and that there is decidedly a who waiting back in her apartment. She clears her throat, brings fingers to well kissed lips. “Just… Wait here.”

He smiles at her, crooked and half a smirk, eyes sparkling in that soft way that sends butterflies through her. “You actually have a guy in there?” 

She can’t help rolling her eyes at him, and she also can’t help her delight at him. “Did you really think I was just eating ice cream waiting for you to want me again?”

He lifts a shoulder in a shrug, a wider grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, boyish and cocky. “Maybe.”

She steps back from him, a scoff and a grin fighting it out. “There’s a saying about getting under somebody to get—”

Clay returns the eyeroll, and then pulls her in for another kiss that leaves her breathless and floating. “Good thing you don’t need to get over anybody.” 

She’ll have to remind him at some point about checking his alpha male tendencies, but tonight, against her better angels, she finds the jealousy kind of sexy, and the simultaneously proud and affronted look on his face just makes her laugh. She turns away, leaves him leaning against the hood of his car as she walks back toward her apartment, leaves him for just a second, and when she looks back at him, he’s laughing at her. 

Of all the lives she’s ever imagined for herself, none of them have ever involved kicking one man out of her bed to welcome another one in instead. It would be absurd, if she still saw shades of grey in everything. She seeks nuance by trade, lives in a world where right and wrong exist only as much as the argument is good, spends her time tracing subtle lines of ambiguity and breathing depth under the surface of things that aren’t said. 

But there are things, now, that are stark and undeniable. Good and evil. Life and death. Loved by him or lost to her.

It’s certainty that she learned from him. 

In the end, it takes all of ten minutes to provide the necessary explanations that empty her apartment. The apologies that fall from her lips seem hollow, for how not sorry she is to see him go.

And then, Clay is shutting her front door behind them decisively, looking at her with eyes that have always seen right through her, and she can no longer convince herself there’s anything she wants to apologize for. 

Later, her moral compass will come back to her, and she will apologize more earnestly to Ben, whose only fault was that he was the safe choice who reminded her of absolutely nothing. But in the orange glow of the street lights, and in the cradle of Clay’s arms, there is only him or not him, and that’s no choice at all.

In the morning, light slants through her curtains in a gauzy, dreamlike way that reminds her of reading a good book for the first time—disorienting, but beautiful, and paired with a rising awe in her chest at witnessing something tremendous. Were it actually a scene in a book for her students to analyze, this morning would clearly symbolize rebirth or renewal, a new light. But this, her life, is neither a book nor a dream, and she can tell he’s awake from the purposeful rhythm of his breath. 

“I can’t believe you actually kicked him out.” Clay’s sleep-heavy voice is deep and warm against her neck. “Poor guy.”

“What…” she responds, leaning back into the solid wall of his chest. “Would you have rather I let him stay?”

He drapes an arm around her waist, drawing her in closer, and she can hear the smirk in his next words. “I dunno—could’ve been interesting.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He takes the opportunity to sneak a hand up her abdomen, thumb running circles against her ribs. “No, I just mean— I’ve had to walk away from you before. It isn’t easy.”

“We weren’t serious,” she murmurs. “Ben and me. I wasn’t the love of his life or anything.” They met at a bar within walking distance to her apartment, and bringing him home was just a means to an end. “Don’t worry. He’s not going to come back and fight you.”

“I’d like to see him try.”

“I’m sure you would.” 

He laughs, the sound reverberating through her own chest, and she laces their fingers together in front of her.

“Clay…” she shifts, turning so that she’s facing him and can look him in the eye. “I’m never going to stop being sorry for breaking up with you the way that I did—” She is sorry, but she doesn’t exactly regret it, anymore. They needed—she needed—to walk away to figure out what was actually important to her. It had been overwhelming and unbelievable, how quickly and indelibly she’d fallen in love with him, and it had consumed her far more than she ever thought possible. Far more than she wanted it to, at that point. For someone who had been independent and sure of her own way since she could stand on two feet, it had been too much to bear to cede any portion of her happiness and security to someone else. “—but could you let me know now if you’re going to hold it over my head for the rest of our lives?” 

“Sorry.” He blows out a slow breath of air. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

He takes his time answering, and she’s left in his silence to wonder what he’s thinking.

In the years she’s known him, and learned him, and loved him, he’s gone from an enigma and adventure to a part of her she couldn’t excise, no matter how hard she tried, but there will always be parts of him she will spend her life trying to uncover. 

The Clay she first met in a bar, loud, arrogant, quoting _A Streetcar Named Desire_ at her, who was too charming for his own good, had been infuriating and intoxicating. Different than anything she’d expected him to be, taking her for a ride against all of her own implicit biases—different than anything she’d ever expected him to be in her life. 

She was never supposed to fall in love with him.

The Clays she’s met since then—the Clays she’s loved—wrote themselves into the heart of her. Ambitious, righteous, decisive in ways she wishes she could be. Noble, and good, and devoted. Infuriating still and always, but in ways that make her love him more each day, and made her miss him when she no longer had him. 

“I’m not walking away again, Stella,” he says finally, decisively. “This is it.” 

She never expected him. Never expected him to become what he is to her. Never expected any of this at all. She loves him. She’s tried denying it, forgetting it, and moving on from it, but he always pulls her back to him. 

_This is it._

“Good,” she says, because she means it. “Neither am I.”

He kisses her then, soft and slow and sweet. 

“Good, because I’m not sure Sonny can handle another Stella and Clay breakup.” 

She snorts, but can’t help the earnestness that rises in her voice when she responds. “That makes two of us.” 

“He’ll be glad to hear that.” She feels his arms tighten around her. He presses his lips against the crown of her hair, and she can almost hear the cogs turning in his head. 

“I wasn’t completely faultless then, either,” he says eventually, looking past her, drawing aimless circles against her spine. “You were scared, and you asked me to take your fear seriously, but I minimized it instead.” He looks like he’s a thousand miles away. “I didn’t want to worry you.” 

She sighs, runs her hand against the warm skin of his arm and settles it against the strong angle of his jaw. There’s a bruise blooming on his other cheek that she’s careful to avoid. “I’ve been worried for four years. I’m always going to worry.” She learned the hard way that the fear that came with loving him didn’t just disappear when she walked away. In the weeks after he walked onto that plane with one last look back, she’d been able to convince herself the pit growing wide in her stomach was normal. Just like any other break up. There had been ice cream, and mediocre sex with strangers, and venting sessions with Evan about the hypocrisies of American militarism and imperialism, and still, a deep and incessant pit of fear in her core that nothing could fill. 

Years later, she knows now that the only thing worse than insistent fear is to be scared anyway, with no right to know if he’s okay, no right to hold him in all of the other moments—no right to worry about him at all. 

He can’t promise her that he’ll always be okay, and she’ll never stop fearing that he won’t. 

But she will cherish and fight for the moments they do have together, today and every day to come. She has forced him to walk away, and has walked away herself. It’s time to try staying, instead. 

“I love you,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from andrew mcmahon in the wilderness' _dead man's dollar_.


End file.
